Following on from the protest earlier in September, protesters once again gathered outside of the Home Office, London, UK, to demand that the pending deportation of Osime Brown be halted. Osime was arrested under the joint enterprise law (guilty by association) in the UK for being with a group of people who stole a mobile phone, despite a witness stating that Osime had tried to stop the robbery.
The joint enterprise law has been used to disproportionately arrest POC in the UK. The law allows those associated with a crime to be arrested and charged, regardless of whether or not they were the one to commit the crime.
Following on from the first protest, it was brought to our attention that Osime will be released from prison on 7th October, 2020, and moved immediately to a detention facility to await deportation to Jamaica. Osime has not lived in Jamaica since he was a toddler and is both autistic and learning disabled. He asked his mother which road he walks down from Jamaica to visit her in Birmingham, UK. He has a heart condition that has required multiple surgeries and is currently on suicide watch in prison.
Deporting Osime to Jamaica could quite literally be a death sentence, which is why protesters have been gathering in London.
The protest was attended by notable names in autism advocacy, including Emma Dalmayne, whose organisation Autistic Inclusive Meets organised the protest. The protest was also attended by Osime’s Family, and Nadia Whittome MP.
The protest was recorded by StreetMic Podcast
This really is a desperate situation, and I ask you all to bring attention to this blatant disregard for human rights. Osime deserves to be with his family, not imprisoned and deported for a crime he did not commit.
Being Black and autistic is not a crime.
And one more time, for anyone who hasn’t absorbed that message:
Being Black and autistic is not a crime.
This really is a pivotal moment for the rights of marginalised communities. This is the moment when we show that we will not sit by while injustice runs rampant. We must be on the right side of history.
For more information, follow Free Osime Brown on Facebook.
He has extensive experience of educational consultancy with both organisations and individuals.
He runs Emergent Divergence which can be found on multiple social media platforms, and is a regular educator and presenter on Aucademy.
He is co-author of the "Creating Autistic Suffering" series, found on his website emergentdivergence.com, and is also a published poet.
To make contact about his consultancy and mentoring services, visit http://www.dghneurodivergentconsultancy.co.uk
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4 Responses
To be on the right side of history includes, to mention, use, cite, + not ignore, the court change described here courtchange.wordpress.com/the-court-change-or-the-non-finality-situation/ and its power of faulting the reasoning of all decisions.
I’ll be honest, a lot of that went over my head as law really isn’t my field. What I did note is that it kept citing EU law. This may be a problem as the UK is not longer part of the EU, and is pulling out of a lot of the legal stuff that the EU put in place.
European Convention on Human Rights is not EU. It’s Council of Europe, a separate + older organisation, the agreement for human rights in Europe. More countries are in it, not always meaning they comply with the human rights, as even Russia is in it.
Britain is still in it as of now, though the hard Brexiters intend us to leave it too. But leaving it does not make any difference to this court change. It is a case introducing an item into national law’s functioning an item that is always there once is has happened. It does not matter to it whether we leave the Convention later, it only matters that we were in it at the time of the case.
Unfortunately I’m still a little confused as to what the linked article was talking about, I am out of spoons at the moment and really struggling to process stuff.